Known combustors may use a hula seal as an interface between the combustion liner and the transition piece. Similar types of hula seals may be used between a combustion liner cap assembly and the combustion liner and/or elsewhere with the gas turbine engine. As described in, for example, commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 6,334,310, a hula seal is generally defined as a system of leaf springs formed into a round loop and used to seal a sliding interface joint or annular gap between two concentric ducts.
A certain amount of mass flow is generally leaked through the hula seal in order to maintain low temperatures about the seals. A hula seal with a larger leakage area may be used to divert more airflow directly to the hot side of the liner so as to reduce the air mass flow going to the headend. This flow also may help increase the lean burnout margin.
There is thus a desire for an improved hula seal design that may increase the flow therethrough. Such an increased flow should also decrease the pressure drop so as to reduce the thermal radiance about the transition piece headend. Such an increased flow also should increase overall combustor efficiency as well as system efficiency as a whole.